"Sometimes in the evening, when you do not see,
I study the small things you do constantly.
I memorize moments that I'm fondest of.
My cup runneth over with love."
***
The hotel room door closed, sealing off the world. Calleigh and Horatio simultaneously let out a sigh of contentment and anticipation. "Now," she said, pulling the room service cart toward her, "we need some energy for tonight." She spread out the dishes on the small table in the room. "I've been absolutely starving since I got here. Don't know why."
"All the exercise." Horatio had a playful glint in his eye. She shuddered again at his voice, and everything it promised.
"Exercise is good for us." She sat down. "Come here, husband. I don't want you running out of energy, either."
"No chance." He settled across from her, though, and they ate together, resting their eyes on each other. Food for the soul, as well as the body. When they were done, she started to stack the plates together, and he stood up and came around behind her, capturing her with his arms. "Leave it. We've got to let the hotel staff earn their salaries." She turned to him willingly, and they kissed with growing passion.
The knock on the door startled both of them. "Are we back in Miami already?" asked Calleigh, breaking away reluctantly.
"Not last time I checked." Horatio eyed the door. "Maybe they'll go away." The second knock was louder, more determined. Resigned, he crossed the room and opened the door.
The police detective flashed his badge. "Horatio Caine?"
"Yes."
"We'd like to talk to you for a minute." Horatio swung the door wider in invitation, and the detective entered, followed by the uniformed officer with him. The detective studied Horatio curiously as they crossed to the chairs. This man was absolutely unruffled at finding police at the door. Criminals usually had an arrogance, a pride, a sense of rising to the challenge of the police. The innocent public, on the other hand, could not be confronted with a policeman unexpectedly without doing a half-guilty mental canter around all activities of the last few days, looking for an unintentional infraction. This Horatio Caine, however, did not react either way. There was mild curiosity in him but no sense of being rocked at all. And that set him apart from 99% of the people the detective had met on the job.
"Detective Sanders. This is Officer Wilson."
"My wife, Calleigh Caine." (How he loved thinking of her that way!) The two officers took the armchairs, and Calleigh and Horatio sat on the couch.
Horatio made no move to start the proceedings, just waiting calmly, and Sanders threw out the preliminaries and decided to jump straight to the core. "We understand that you spoke to Rosalind Stevens in the hotel lobby this morning."
"Yes, I did." The curiosity was sharper, but no wariness. Sanders and Wilson would both swear on their careers that he did not know what was coming.
"Ms. Stevens was kidnapped this afternoon."
That brought a reaction. Calleigh let out a gasp and gripped Horatio's hand more tightly. Horatio stiffened up, and the instant concern in his eyes surprised the detective. Much more than the automatic response of any honest adult to a child in danger. "Has there been a ransom demand?"
"Yes," Sanders started automatically, then caught himself. The question had been put with such authority that he had instantly begun to answer. Horatio caught his reaction and gave him an understanding smile.
"We're both with the Miami-Dade PD. We work in the crime lab."
"Horatio's the head of the crime lab," Calleigh said proudly. If he wouldn't finish his resume, she would.
The two officers both instantly relaxed into the unspoken brotherhood of police. Besides, Sanders reassured himself, this man was absolutely not involved in any way. Either that, or he deserved an Oscar for his acting ability. "I see. Yes, there has been a ransom demand. Her father is a businessman of considerable means. What we wanted to ask you, did you notice anyone this morning watching the girl, staying near her?"
Horatio took a second to reconstruct the scene. "No. People were coming and going, but no one was doing one thing as long as we were. She did have another child with her, I assume a new friend from the hotel. Matt, she called him."
"We've spoken to Matt. He's the one who mentioned you. But he didn't notice anything at all. He was with Ms. Stevens until about 1:00, at which point he went with his parents. She was going out to look at the falls, he said. He couldn't give us many details, though. It was his parents who provided the time he left her. He couldn't even tell us what she was wearing."
"Blue jeans, plain red T-shirt, and blue and white Nike tennis shoes," said Horatio instantly. Wilson immediately wrote it down in his notebook. Sanders looked impressed.
"Thank you. Her father couldn't give us that." Calleigh couldn't help a moment's anger at the unnoticing businessman on the plane, mixed with sympathy, because she knew that he was probably kicking himself for being unnoticing right now.
"Did anyone see her after Matt left her?" Horatio leaned forward slightly, his head tilted a bit.
"No one we've found. You didn't see her later yourself?"
"No, but there are a lot of paths and trails out there, lonely spots, as well as the main observation decks. And it could have been the main deck. You know, it isn't impossible to take a child out of a crowd." All four of them nodded in reluctant acknowledgement. "The odd thing is," Horatio continued, "that Rosalind wasn't supposed to come on this trip until 3 days ago."
"Really?" Sanders sat up straighter. "Her father didn't mention that. He's absolutely beside himself, though, poor guy."
"Her mother is in the hospital with a ruptured appendix. Her coming with her father was a last minute thing, definitely. That means the crime is planned over 2 days, no more. They can't have it perfect. They'll leave clues." His eyes met Sanders' directly. "What is the ransom demand?"
Wilson eyed his superior curiously. This certainly was one of the strangest witness questionings he had ever sat in on. Horatio had the lead. Sanders, after a moment's pause, answered. "$50,000. In unmarked bills, of course. He's supposed to get it and wait for further instructions. Also not contact the police, so we're trying to keep a low profile."
Horatio frowned. "50,000? That's low." Calleigh nodded her agreement.
"Sounded low to me. We really don't have kidnapping cases come up, though. This isn't a big city like Miami. Niagara lives on the tourist business, and we're almost at the end of the busy season. The only detective on our force with kidnapping experience is on vacation for two weeks, rafting through the Grand Canyon."
"This has an amateur feel to it," said Horatio. "The ransom's too low, the planning time is too short. There have to be clues somewhere. Could I see the ransom note, please?"
Wilson dropped his pen and picked it up quickly. Sanders studied Horatio again. A good man to have in his corner, he decided. Like most cops, he had to just trust his instincts at times. And he did feel totally out of his depth here. "It's a tape, actually. A cassette tape. It was left in an envelope in Mr. Stevens' message slot at the front desk." Sanders stood up. "Come on, I'll let you hear it." Horatio shot one quick look of apology at Calleigh as they stood, and she squeezed his arm encouragingly. The thought of that beautiful child in the hands of kidnappers tore her apart, too. She wanted him to help. His answering smile of gratitude dazzled her. Then, they followed the officers together out of the room.
***
"We have your girl." The voice was gravelly, purposefully disguised probably. "If you ever want to see her again, get $50,000 in unmarked bills ready. Do not contact the police. We will be in touch in a few days." Sanders snapped the small tape player off.
"Play it again." Horatio had his eyes shut, closing off visual distractions. Sanders rewound it and played it again. Horatio opened his eyes.
"The voice is disguised. Not only that, it's disguised to match someone's memory of a movie gangster. This definitely isn't a professional. Probably someone who's spent a lot of time watching movies. No professional would say "in a few days" either. The most interesting thing, though, is that it was taped outside."
"Really?" Sanders was skeptical. "Wouldn't inside be more secure?"
"Absolutely. That's why it's interesting. Listen to it again, though, and there's a faint noise in the background, a rumble, like driving in a car with the windows down but much less." Sanders rewound it again and played it. Listening for it, they all heard it this time. Faint, but there.
"So it was taped in a running car with the windows down?"
"No," said Horatio. "That isn't the wind. Too constant, too distant, no variation at all. It's the falls." Wilson and Sanders simultaneously sat up straight, the light bulbs almost visible. They lived and worked around the roar of the falls so much that it became part of the normal background for them. They hadn't noticed it. "The hotel rooms are soundproofed around here. These are top class, top dollar hotels. And I think the criminals are staying in a hotel. The timing is too tight. No one knew she would be here until 2 days ago."
"Inside in a chintzy hotel, then? You can get low dollar."
"Not close to the falls. Besides, there's a bird call at one point, too. Right between $50,000 and in unmarked bills. Much closer bird call than you'd get inside. Undistorted." They played the tape again. There it was. "This was taped outside, in a fairly private spot, within distant earshot of the falls. My guess, on a trail. Now, we need to find the spot. If that's where they took her, that's where they left some clues."
"How would we do that?" It was just a question, not disbelief. Sanders was actually starting to believe that this man had worked a Rubic's Cube in 3 minutes, like Matt had told him.
"Do you happen to have any laser binoculars?"
"Any what?"
"Laser binoculars. They measure the distance to what you're looking at by bouncing laser beams off, then display the precise distance digitally in the vision field."
"No. I'm afraid we don't have all the high dollar gadgets you get in Miami."
"Doesn't matter. I'll have mine sent up overnight. With those, we can go around the trails and record at different points, measuring the distance from the falls by using different landmarks when we can't get a straight shot. If we have a sample of, say, 20 different even distances from the falls and compare what a recording there sounds like to the ransom tape, we can get a good idea of how far from the falls it was taped. Then plug that figure into a map of the trails, and we'll find our crime scene." Horatio sat up straighter. "Do you have the envelope the tape came in?"
"Here it is, but no fingerprints. We did get a few fingerprints from the tape itself. Hard to remove a tape wearing gloves. We've sent them off to the city to be run." Calleigh longed for AFIS, the ability to process this stuff immediately. Horatio studied the envelope, a plain one with no return address, just Stevens' name written across the front. He sniffed it, then passed it to Calleigh.
"What do you get from that?"
She sniffed herself. Faint but unmistakable. "Chloroform. That's how they got Rosalind."
"Right, and there was some left on the gloves when he handled the envelope."
"Do you think it would do any good to have a hotel room search?" Sanders asked.
"No, it would just get the word out better than the evening news. You'd never get all the way through it without broadcasting to the criminals that they need to move her. Unless you hit in the first few rooms you tried, it would be useless. Do you think there's any point in talking to Stevens?"
"No. He's too upset. And I really don't think he noticed anything that would help."
"Probably not," agreed Calleigh, remembering the plane.
"One good thing, at least at the moment," said Horatio. "If these guys are amateurs, they'll be much less likely to have killed the girl already." His mind cringed from the words, but he had to express the possibility. They had all thought it. "They probably do intend for a simple money for kid exchange."
"Why is that only good at the moment?" asked Sanders.
"They won't be as cool as professionals, either. When something goes wrong, when we get close, they'll be more likely to act wildly, on impulse."
"Nothing we can really do until we find the crime scene and get the fingerprints, then," said Sanders reluctantly.
"No. We'll keep talking to people discretely, though." Horatio reluctantly stood up. "I guess we'd better get back to the hotel." Calleigh grinned privately at the reluctance in his voice, but she totally understood. How she adored this man, who wanted to protect all the innocents of the world!
"It is getting too late to ask questions without raising our profile." It was 11:30 by the police station clock. "I'll have Wilson run you back to the hotel. I'll call the fingerprints lab and try to convince them to get a rush on this set when they get them tomorrow."
Leaving the police station, they passed Sanders' undercover car and approached the marked police cruiser. "Do you get a car along with your job in Miami?" asked Wilson, eyeing his superior's car with envy.
"I get a Hummer," said Horatio, and Wilson dropped his car keys, then swore while he knelt in the dark, feeling along the ground for them. Calleigh and Horatio took the opportunity for a warm, reassuring kiss.
***
Delko, Laura, Speed, and Pam sprawled in two comfortable tangles in Eric's cluttered apartment, watching a movie. When the phone rang, Speed glanced at his watch, glowing in the dark. "Midnight? Who would call at midnight?"
"Just hope it's not a new case," groaned Eric, scrambling up to answer it. "Hello."
"Eric, it's Horatio."
"Hey, H, how's the honeymoon going?" What Eric really wondered was why his boss, on his honeymoon, was calling his coworkers at midnight.
"Wonderful, but there's one thing I need that I can't get quickly up here. Could you ship it up to me?"
"Sure, what do you need?"
"The laser binoculars."
Eric dropped the phone, caught it by the cord, and pulled it back up to his ear. "Sorry, H. You still there? You need your laser binoculars?"
"Right. And as soon as possible. Ship them off first thing in the morning, fastest courier you can find. Cost isn't an object."
"You want your laser binoculars as quickly as possible," said Eric dubiously.
"Exactly. Thanks a million, Eric."
"Um, no problem, H." They hung up, and Eric turned back to his friends. They had stopped the movie and switched on the light. "That was Horatio."
"He wants his laser binoculars?" asked Speed.
"On his honeymoon?" asked Laura.
"Yeah," said Eric. "As quickly as possible. Cost doesn't matter." They all looked at each other for a minute.
"I will never totally understand that guy," said Speed.
***
Calleigh woke up around 4:00 AM. The moon was almost full, and moonlight flooded the room. She studied Horatio, so close to her. Part of her was consumed with worry for Rosalind, but part of her was lost hopelessly in absolute love for this man. Every part of him. His sense of protection toward others, his compassion for the helpless, his razor-sharp mind, and the apology he had given her when they had returned to their room, as if he needed to apologize for caring. Their love tonight had been less wild, less urgent than yesterday, yet somehow deliciously deeper. Horatio, she thought, how did I ever live without you? She still found herself feeling like Cinderella, waiting for the spell to end and her shining coach to become a pumpkin. Even in the fairy tale, she remembered, the prince had never changed. Horatio was absolutely what he appeared to be. She just had trouble convincing herself that it was all hers. And unbelievably, he loved her back with as much abandon as she loved him. Incredible. I never lived before this, she thought. All my life has just been waiting. Waiting for him.
***
The bridge shifted beneath his feet, swaying with growing motion. He tried to ignore the fear that gripped him, tried to propel himself forward faster. Rosalind stood in the middle of the bridge, reaching out both hands toward him, calling to him, oblivious to the dark shadow behind her that stretched its own arms out. He tried to warn her, but she didn't seem to hear, still laughing, calling to him. He ran toward her, but the shadow approached even faster from the other side. Seconds before he reached her, it did, enveloping her into itself. Rosalind disappeared as the trembling bridge finally gave way, collapsing out from under him, and the entire world dissolved into free fall until a blinding blow along his head shattered everything into darkness.
"Horatio!" Hands, warm and comfortingly real, gripped his arms tightly. He opened his eyes, reassured by the return of vision. Moonlight lit the room almost as bright as day. Calleigh's eyes, full of concern, met his. "Are you okay?"
"I think so." He pushed himself up a bit on the pillows, feeling his heart slowly return to normal. "Sorry. Did I wake you up?"
She shook him gently. "Horatio Caine, if you don't stop apologizing to me for things that don't need it, I -am- going to get mad at you. Were you dreaming about the bridge?"
He nodded. "And Rosalind."
"Tell me about it." He hesitated, but it was a command, not a request. He told her the dream, and she shuddered herself. He gripped her reassuringly in turn.
"She can't have just disappeared. Not like that. We'll find her." The intensity of the promise filled the room. "Nobody just falls into a shadow without a trace."
He had automatically focused on Rosalind, her problem, not the bridge, his own. Calleigh loved him all over again. "I know you'll find her. She'll be fine." She kissed his forehead. "After all, they're amateurs. And we're professionals. They don't stand a chance." He relaxed slightly, answering her smile. "Have you dreamed about the bridge collapse before?" She had never been aware of it, and now she wondered guiltily how she could have ignored the possibility.
He hesitated too long. Caught, he confessed. "Sometimes. Not often, though. And it never bothered me to cross one until that moving one yesterday."
"Horatio, anyone would be reminded by that. I'm just sorry I didn't think of it before we started across. In fact, most people would be bothered by bridges in general."
"It doesn't make sense, though." He was getting his stubborn look again.
"It makes all the sense in the world. Your body doesn't want that to happen again. And you should listen to it. You stay away from collapsing bridges in the future, you hear me?" Her mock sternness touched him, because he saw the seriousness behind it. "I am not going to lose you, now that I've found you," she told him fiercely. She realized again how close she had come to it. Suddenly, the heat exploded between them, and they came together again, becoming one with each other, trying to express the inexpressible. Afterwards, he drifted off to sleep again, this time soundly, and she lay there awake but feeling absolutely rested and loved. Horatio, she thought, watching him breathe, don't ever change.
***
The next day was spent in questioning people, trying to trace Rosalind's movements, without being obvious about it. No uniformed officers around this time. Sanders, Horatio, and Calleigh wandered through the crowds, trying to be casual. The wait grated on Horatio's nerves, though. Nothing solid, no evidence to work with until the binoculars arrived from Miami or the fingerprints came back from the lab. He hated working at a distance from the lab. He wanted to see the evidence, to get his hands on it, to make it give up its secrets.
They also talked with Mr. Stevens, Rosalind's father, that afternoon. He looked shriveled inside his business suit, as if someone had stuck a pin in him, letting the air out. "I can't believe it," he said for the twentieth time. "I didn't keep an eye on her. I thought she would always be there."
No, thought Calleigh, she would have grown up some day. She didn't say it, though. This man was already mired in guilt. He didn't need more.
"We'll find her," said Sanders. "We have everything set up in case they call." A wire tap was on the hotel room phone.
"Probably, it'll be another tape," said Horatio. "Did you alert the front desk?"
"Absolutely. We have a plainclothesman down there helping on the desk, too. No one is just going to walk in and leave a message for him again."
"I just can't believe it," said Stevens again. "This isn't real. It can't be." He looked at them hopefully, but it was all too real. And they all knew it.
***
Horatio and Calleigh ate downstairs in the hotel restaurant that night. Horatio wanted to watch the people, unobtrusively, of course. He studied faces, trying to plug any of them into his mental picture of the lobby the day before, the scene with Rosalind. Nothing. The perp must have latched onto the girl later. He would swear that no one had been watching her while she was with him. And they had stood there for several minutes, long enough for a watcher to become obvious.
"Let's walk out to the falls," he said, as they finished. "We haven't seen them in the dark." And there would be more people out there to study. "I want to talk to the man at the desk again, too."
"Fine. I'll just use the facilities. Meet you outside." She headed on toward the restrooms near the doors while he went back across the lobby to the reception desk. No one had left a message for Stevens. No one suspicious had come through. While he was standing there, the next detective arrived to replace the previous one, changing at the same time the desk clerk shift changed to avoid suspicion. Horatio took a minute to talk to the new clerk and the new detective. Finally, he walked outside.
She wasn't there. An icicle of worry stabbed him in the chest. The area wasn't as crowded as during the day, but there were plenty of people there. Just not Calleigh. He combed the crowd again, then went back into the lobby. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. He sent a grandmotherly-looking woman into the women's restroom to check. She wasn't there. Back outside, then. No one could have snatched her in the hotel lobby. Outside, the crowd provided some cover. He covered the area thoroughly, in expanding circles from the door. There was a closed drink stand between their hotel and the next one. Behind it, shielded from the crowd, Horatio found what he was looking for. A handkerchief lay on the ground. He used his sleeve to pick it up, not disturbing fingerprints, and smelled it. Chloroform. Much stronger than the traces on the envelope sent by the kidnappers to Stevens.
They had Calleigh.
***
The hotel room door closed, sealing off the world. Calleigh and Horatio simultaneously let out a sigh of contentment and anticipation. "Now," she said, pulling the room service cart toward her, "we need some energy for tonight." She spread out the dishes on the small table in the room. "I've been absolutely starving since I got here. Don't know why."
"All the exercise." Horatio had a playful glint in his eye. She shuddered again at his voice, and everything it promised.
"Exercise is good for us." She sat down. "Come here, husband. I don't want you running out of energy, either."
"No chance." He settled across from her, though, and they ate together, resting their eyes on each other. Food for the soul, as well as the body. When they were done, she started to stack the plates together, and he stood up and came around behind her, capturing her with his arms. "Leave it. We've got to let the hotel staff earn their salaries." She turned to him willingly, and they kissed with growing passion.
The knock on the door startled both of them. "Are we back in Miami already?" asked Calleigh, breaking away reluctantly.
"Not last time I checked." Horatio eyed the door. "Maybe they'll go away." The second knock was louder, more determined. Resigned, he crossed the room and opened the door.
The police detective flashed his badge. "Horatio Caine?"
"Yes."
"We'd like to talk to you for a minute." Horatio swung the door wider in invitation, and the detective entered, followed by the uniformed officer with him. The detective studied Horatio curiously as they crossed to the chairs. This man was absolutely unruffled at finding police at the door. Criminals usually had an arrogance, a pride, a sense of rising to the challenge of the police. The innocent public, on the other hand, could not be confronted with a policeman unexpectedly without doing a half-guilty mental canter around all activities of the last few days, looking for an unintentional infraction. This Horatio Caine, however, did not react either way. There was mild curiosity in him but no sense of being rocked at all. And that set him apart from 99% of the people the detective had met on the job.
"Detective Sanders. This is Officer Wilson."
"My wife, Calleigh Caine." (How he loved thinking of her that way!) The two officers took the armchairs, and Calleigh and Horatio sat on the couch.
Horatio made no move to start the proceedings, just waiting calmly, and Sanders threw out the preliminaries and decided to jump straight to the core. "We understand that you spoke to Rosalind Stevens in the hotel lobby this morning."
"Yes, I did." The curiosity was sharper, but no wariness. Sanders and Wilson would both swear on their careers that he did not know what was coming.
"Ms. Stevens was kidnapped this afternoon."
That brought a reaction. Calleigh let out a gasp and gripped Horatio's hand more tightly. Horatio stiffened up, and the instant concern in his eyes surprised the detective. Much more than the automatic response of any honest adult to a child in danger. "Has there been a ransom demand?"
"Yes," Sanders started automatically, then caught himself. The question had been put with such authority that he had instantly begun to answer. Horatio caught his reaction and gave him an understanding smile.
"We're both with the Miami-Dade PD. We work in the crime lab."
"Horatio's the head of the crime lab," Calleigh said proudly. If he wouldn't finish his resume, she would.
The two officers both instantly relaxed into the unspoken brotherhood of police. Besides, Sanders reassured himself, this man was absolutely not involved in any way. Either that, or he deserved an Oscar for his acting ability. "I see. Yes, there has been a ransom demand. Her father is a businessman of considerable means. What we wanted to ask you, did you notice anyone this morning watching the girl, staying near her?"
Horatio took a second to reconstruct the scene. "No. People were coming and going, but no one was doing one thing as long as we were. She did have another child with her, I assume a new friend from the hotel. Matt, she called him."
"We've spoken to Matt. He's the one who mentioned you. But he didn't notice anything at all. He was with Ms. Stevens until about 1:00, at which point he went with his parents. She was going out to look at the falls, he said. He couldn't give us many details, though. It was his parents who provided the time he left her. He couldn't even tell us what she was wearing."
"Blue jeans, plain red T-shirt, and blue and white Nike tennis shoes," said Horatio instantly. Wilson immediately wrote it down in his notebook. Sanders looked impressed.
"Thank you. Her father couldn't give us that." Calleigh couldn't help a moment's anger at the unnoticing businessman on the plane, mixed with sympathy, because she knew that he was probably kicking himself for being unnoticing right now.
"Did anyone see her after Matt left her?" Horatio leaned forward slightly, his head tilted a bit.
"No one we've found. You didn't see her later yourself?"
"No, but there are a lot of paths and trails out there, lonely spots, as well as the main observation decks. And it could have been the main deck. You know, it isn't impossible to take a child out of a crowd." All four of them nodded in reluctant acknowledgement. "The odd thing is," Horatio continued, "that Rosalind wasn't supposed to come on this trip until 3 days ago."
"Really?" Sanders sat up straighter. "Her father didn't mention that. He's absolutely beside himself, though, poor guy."
"Her mother is in the hospital with a ruptured appendix. Her coming with her father was a last minute thing, definitely. That means the crime is planned over 2 days, no more. They can't have it perfect. They'll leave clues." His eyes met Sanders' directly. "What is the ransom demand?"
Wilson eyed his superior curiously. This certainly was one of the strangest witness questionings he had ever sat in on. Horatio had the lead. Sanders, after a moment's pause, answered. "$50,000. In unmarked bills, of course. He's supposed to get it and wait for further instructions. Also not contact the police, so we're trying to keep a low profile."
Horatio frowned. "50,000? That's low." Calleigh nodded her agreement.
"Sounded low to me. We really don't have kidnapping cases come up, though. This isn't a big city like Miami. Niagara lives on the tourist business, and we're almost at the end of the busy season. The only detective on our force with kidnapping experience is on vacation for two weeks, rafting through the Grand Canyon."
"This has an amateur feel to it," said Horatio. "The ransom's too low, the planning time is too short. There have to be clues somewhere. Could I see the ransom note, please?"
Wilson dropped his pen and picked it up quickly. Sanders studied Horatio again. A good man to have in his corner, he decided. Like most cops, he had to just trust his instincts at times. And he did feel totally out of his depth here. "It's a tape, actually. A cassette tape. It was left in an envelope in Mr. Stevens' message slot at the front desk." Sanders stood up. "Come on, I'll let you hear it." Horatio shot one quick look of apology at Calleigh as they stood, and she squeezed his arm encouragingly. The thought of that beautiful child in the hands of kidnappers tore her apart, too. She wanted him to help. His answering smile of gratitude dazzled her. Then, they followed the officers together out of the room.
***
"We have your girl." The voice was gravelly, purposefully disguised probably. "If you ever want to see her again, get $50,000 in unmarked bills ready. Do not contact the police. We will be in touch in a few days." Sanders snapped the small tape player off.
"Play it again." Horatio had his eyes shut, closing off visual distractions. Sanders rewound it and played it again. Horatio opened his eyes.
"The voice is disguised. Not only that, it's disguised to match someone's memory of a movie gangster. This definitely isn't a professional. Probably someone who's spent a lot of time watching movies. No professional would say "in a few days" either. The most interesting thing, though, is that it was taped outside."
"Really?" Sanders was skeptical. "Wouldn't inside be more secure?"
"Absolutely. That's why it's interesting. Listen to it again, though, and there's a faint noise in the background, a rumble, like driving in a car with the windows down but much less." Sanders rewound it again and played it. Listening for it, they all heard it this time. Faint, but there.
"So it was taped in a running car with the windows down?"
"No," said Horatio. "That isn't the wind. Too constant, too distant, no variation at all. It's the falls." Wilson and Sanders simultaneously sat up straight, the light bulbs almost visible. They lived and worked around the roar of the falls so much that it became part of the normal background for them. They hadn't noticed it. "The hotel rooms are soundproofed around here. These are top class, top dollar hotels. And I think the criminals are staying in a hotel. The timing is too tight. No one knew she would be here until 2 days ago."
"Inside in a chintzy hotel, then? You can get low dollar."
"Not close to the falls. Besides, there's a bird call at one point, too. Right between $50,000 and in unmarked bills. Much closer bird call than you'd get inside. Undistorted." They played the tape again. There it was. "This was taped outside, in a fairly private spot, within distant earshot of the falls. My guess, on a trail. Now, we need to find the spot. If that's where they took her, that's where they left some clues."
"How would we do that?" It was just a question, not disbelief. Sanders was actually starting to believe that this man had worked a Rubic's Cube in 3 minutes, like Matt had told him.
"Do you happen to have any laser binoculars?"
"Any what?"
"Laser binoculars. They measure the distance to what you're looking at by bouncing laser beams off, then display the precise distance digitally in the vision field."
"No. I'm afraid we don't have all the high dollar gadgets you get in Miami."
"Doesn't matter. I'll have mine sent up overnight. With those, we can go around the trails and record at different points, measuring the distance from the falls by using different landmarks when we can't get a straight shot. If we have a sample of, say, 20 different even distances from the falls and compare what a recording there sounds like to the ransom tape, we can get a good idea of how far from the falls it was taped. Then plug that figure into a map of the trails, and we'll find our crime scene." Horatio sat up straighter. "Do you have the envelope the tape came in?"
"Here it is, but no fingerprints. We did get a few fingerprints from the tape itself. Hard to remove a tape wearing gloves. We've sent them off to the city to be run." Calleigh longed for AFIS, the ability to process this stuff immediately. Horatio studied the envelope, a plain one with no return address, just Stevens' name written across the front. He sniffed it, then passed it to Calleigh.
"What do you get from that?"
She sniffed herself. Faint but unmistakable. "Chloroform. That's how they got Rosalind."
"Right, and there was some left on the gloves when he handled the envelope."
"Do you think it would do any good to have a hotel room search?" Sanders asked.
"No, it would just get the word out better than the evening news. You'd never get all the way through it without broadcasting to the criminals that they need to move her. Unless you hit in the first few rooms you tried, it would be useless. Do you think there's any point in talking to Stevens?"
"No. He's too upset. And I really don't think he noticed anything that would help."
"Probably not," agreed Calleigh, remembering the plane.
"One good thing, at least at the moment," said Horatio. "If these guys are amateurs, they'll be much less likely to have killed the girl already." His mind cringed from the words, but he had to express the possibility. They had all thought it. "They probably do intend for a simple money for kid exchange."
"Why is that only good at the moment?" asked Sanders.
"They won't be as cool as professionals, either. When something goes wrong, when we get close, they'll be more likely to act wildly, on impulse."
"Nothing we can really do until we find the crime scene and get the fingerprints, then," said Sanders reluctantly.
"No. We'll keep talking to people discretely, though." Horatio reluctantly stood up. "I guess we'd better get back to the hotel." Calleigh grinned privately at the reluctance in his voice, but she totally understood. How she adored this man, who wanted to protect all the innocents of the world!
"It is getting too late to ask questions without raising our profile." It was 11:30 by the police station clock. "I'll have Wilson run you back to the hotel. I'll call the fingerprints lab and try to convince them to get a rush on this set when they get them tomorrow."
Leaving the police station, they passed Sanders' undercover car and approached the marked police cruiser. "Do you get a car along with your job in Miami?" asked Wilson, eyeing his superior's car with envy.
"I get a Hummer," said Horatio, and Wilson dropped his car keys, then swore while he knelt in the dark, feeling along the ground for them. Calleigh and Horatio took the opportunity for a warm, reassuring kiss.
***
Delko, Laura, Speed, and Pam sprawled in two comfortable tangles in Eric's cluttered apartment, watching a movie. When the phone rang, Speed glanced at his watch, glowing in the dark. "Midnight? Who would call at midnight?"
"Just hope it's not a new case," groaned Eric, scrambling up to answer it. "Hello."
"Eric, it's Horatio."
"Hey, H, how's the honeymoon going?" What Eric really wondered was why his boss, on his honeymoon, was calling his coworkers at midnight.
"Wonderful, but there's one thing I need that I can't get quickly up here. Could you ship it up to me?"
"Sure, what do you need?"
"The laser binoculars."
Eric dropped the phone, caught it by the cord, and pulled it back up to his ear. "Sorry, H. You still there? You need your laser binoculars?"
"Right. And as soon as possible. Ship them off first thing in the morning, fastest courier you can find. Cost isn't an object."
"You want your laser binoculars as quickly as possible," said Eric dubiously.
"Exactly. Thanks a million, Eric."
"Um, no problem, H." They hung up, and Eric turned back to his friends. They had stopped the movie and switched on the light. "That was Horatio."
"He wants his laser binoculars?" asked Speed.
"On his honeymoon?" asked Laura.
"Yeah," said Eric. "As quickly as possible. Cost doesn't matter." They all looked at each other for a minute.
"I will never totally understand that guy," said Speed.
***
Calleigh woke up around 4:00 AM. The moon was almost full, and moonlight flooded the room. She studied Horatio, so close to her. Part of her was consumed with worry for Rosalind, but part of her was lost hopelessly in absolute love for this man. Every part of him. His sense of protection toward others, his compassion for the helpless, his razor-sharp mind, and the apology he had given her when they had returned to their room, as if he needed to apologize for caring. Their love tonight had been less wild, less urgent than yesterday, yet somehow deliciously deeper. Horatio, she thought, how did I ever live without you? She still found herself feeling like Cinderella, waiting for the spell to end and her shining coach to become a pumpkin. Even in the fairy tale, she remembered, the prince had never changed. Horatio was absolutely what he appeared to be. She just had trouble convincing herself that it was all hers. And unbelievably, he loved her back with as much abandon as she loved him. Incredible. I never lived before this, she thought. All my life has just been waiting. Waiting for him.
***
The bridge shifted beneath his feet, swaying with growing motion. He tried to ignore the fear that gripped him, tried to propel himself forward faster. Rosalind stood in the middle of the bridge, reaching out both hands toward him, calling to him, oblivious to the dark shadow behind her that stretched its own arms out. He tried to warn her, but she didn't seem to hear, still laughing, calling to him. He ran toward her, but the shadow approached even faster from the other side. Seconds before he reached her, it did, enveloping her into itself. Rosalind disappeared as the trembling bridge finally gave way, collapsing out from under him, and the entire world dissolved into free fall until a blinding blow along his head shattered everything into darkness.
"Horatio!" Hands, warm and comfortingly real, gripped his arms tightly. He opened his eyes, reassured by the return of vision. Moonlight lit the room almost as bright as day. Calleigh's eyes, full of concern, met his. "Are you okay?"
"I think so." He pushed himself up a bit on the pillows, feeling his heart slowly return to normal. "Sorry. Did I wake you up?"
She shook him gently. "Horatio Caine, if you don't stop apologizing to me for things that don't need it, I -am- going to get mad at you. Were you dreaming about the bridge?"
He nodded. "And Rosalind."
"Tell me about it." He hesitated, but it was a command, not a request. He told her the dream, and she shuddered herself. He gripped her reassuringly in turn.
"She can't have just disappeared. Not like that. We'll find her." The intensity of the promise filled the room. "Nobody just falls into a shadow without a trace."
He had automatically focused on Rosalind, her problem, not the bridge, his own. Calleigh loved him all over again. "I know you'll find her. She'll be fine." She kissed his forehead. "After all, they're amateurs. And we're professionals. They don't stand a chance." He relaxed slightly, answering her smile. "Have you dreamed about the bridge collapse before?" She had never been aware of it, and now she wondered guiltily how she could have ignored the possibility.
He hesitated too long. Caught, he confessed. "Sometimes. Not often, though. And it never bothered me to cross one until that moving one yesterday."
"Horatio, anyone would be reminded by that. I'm just sorry I didn't think of it before we started across. In fact, most people would be bothered by bridges in general."
"It doesn't make sense, though." He was getting his stubborn look again.
"It makes all the sense in the world. Your body doesn't want that to happen again. And you should listen to it. You stay away from collapsing bridges in the future, you hear me?" Her mock sternness touched him, because he saw the seriousness behind it. "I am not going to lose you, now that I've found you," she told him fiercely. She realized again how close she had come to it. Suddenly, the heat exploded between them, and they came together again, becoming one with each other, trying to express the inexpressible. Afterwards, he drifted off to sleep again, this time soundly, and she lay there awake but feeling absolutely rested and loved. Horatio, she thought, watching him breathe, don't ever change.
***
The next day was spent in questioning people, trying to trace Rosalind's movements, without being obvious about it. No uniformed officers around this time. Sanders, Horatio, and Calleigh wandered through the crowds, trying to be casual. The wait grated on Horatio's nerves, though. Nothing solid, no evidence to work with until the binoculars arrived from Miami or the fingerprints came back from the lab. He hated working at a distance from the lab. He wanted to see the evidence, to get his hands on it, to make it give up its secrets.
They also talked with Mr. Stevens, Rosalind's father, that afternoon. He looked shriveled inside his business suit, as if someone had stuck a pin in him, letting the air out. "I can't believe it," he said for the twentieth time. "I didn't keep an eye on her. I thought she would always be there."
No, thought Calleigh, she would have grown up some day. She didn't say it, though. This man was already mired in guilt. He didn't need more.
"We'll find her," said Sanders. "We have everything set up in case they call." A wire tap was on the hotel room phone.
"Probably, it'll be another tape," said Horatio. "Did you alert the front desk?"
"Absolutely. We have a plainclothesman down there helping on the desk, too. No one is just going to walk in and leave a message for him again."
"I just can't believe it," said Stevens again. "This isn't real. It can't be." He looked at them hopefully, but it was all too real. And they all knew it.
***
Horatio and Calleigh ate downstairs in the hotel restaurant that night. Horatio wanted to watch the people, unobtrusively, of course. He studied faces, trying to plug any of them into his mental picture of the lobby the day before, the scene with Rosalind. Nothing. The perp must have latched onto the girl later. He would swear that no one had been watching her while she was with him. And they had stood there for several minutes, long enough for a watcher to become obvious.
"Let's walk out to the falls," he said, as they finished. "We haven't seen them in the dark." And there would be more people out there to study. "I want to talk to the man at the desk again, too."
"Fine. I'll just use the facilities. Meet you outside." She headed on toward the restrooms near the doors while he went back across the lobby to the reception desk. No one had left a message for Stevens. No one suspicious had come through. While he was standing there, the next detective arrived to replace the previous one, changing at the same time the desk clerk shift changed to avoid suspicion. Horatio took a minute to talk to the new clerk and the new detective. Finally, he walked outside.
She wasn't there. An icicle of worry stabbed him in the chest. The area wasn't as crowded as during the day, but there were plenty of people there. Just not Calleigh. He combed the crowd again, then went back into the lobby. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. He sent a grandmotherly-looking woman into the women's restroom to check. She wasn't there. Back outside, then. No one could have snatched her in the hotel lobby. Outside, the crowd provided some cover. He covered the area thoroughly, in expanding circles from the door. There was a closed drink stand between their hotel and the next one. Behind it, shielded from the crowd, Horatio found what he was looking for. A handkerchief lay on the ground. He used his sleeve to pick it up, not disturbing fingerprints, and smelled it. Chloroform. Much stronger than the traces on the envelope sent by the kidnappers to Stevens.
They had Calleigh.